Does FES make soaring more or less accident prone?

I have related this story many times, but one more won't hurt. About ten years ago, I arrived at Parowan for a Regional contest just as a self-launcher camp was finishing. The ramp was littered with engine parts that were being worked on and there was the flash of a welder as someone re-attached a silencer. All the self-launcher pilots appeared to be either working on, testing or discussing engines. It reminded me of a vintage British car rally where the focus is on how you keep them running not how you drive them!

Electric motors have few moving parts and almost never fail to start when required.

Mike

I think the glider offerings by Lange Aviation were very original in thought and well executed, moved the lever forward, engine extracts and starts. The only problem is according to recent articles Lange has serious issues and customers have had to sue to get return of their money. Very sad. So the current offering of gliders have gas or jet engines. I did spend some time of the FES web site and it appears as if these units cannot be installed in Europe on certified gliders. Kind of limits the viability of yet another good idea.

On Monday, April 6, 2015 at 7:29:40 PM UTC-4, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
...I did spend some time of the FES web site and it appears as if these units cannot be installed in Europe on certified gliders.

Things change fast. As of 10/2014 LAK17B FES has EASA Type Certificate.

http://www.front-electric-sustainer.com/news.php

Schempp-hirth seems confident about EASA Type Certificate for Ventus FES

http://www.schempp-hirth.com/index.p...&L=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=640&tx_ttnews[backPid]=130&cHash=745a0119cc